The urban forest is recognized as a potential to improve the quality of life of urban dwellers and increase the sustainability and ecological stability of the city. However, there is little data on professional attitude to urban naturalistic landscapes. This research studies the attitude of professionals and decision makers to the naturalistic forest landscapes in urban area of Riga city, Latvia, in contrast to more traditional – formal landscape. The survey includes the opinions of territorial planners and environment specialists from Riga municipality and other institutions related to ecological, practical, planning and conservation activities, and private working landscape architects. The statistical analysis and data’s empirical distribution showed that professionals in Riga city recognize the values and benefits of naturalistic forest landscape. However, environmental preferences may depend more on affective reactions than on ecologically-based logical operations.

Urban forests provide ecological and social functions and significantly improve esthetical value of these ecosystems. These forests also function as recreational areas for urban residents. The aim of this study was to assess the influence of understory cutting of different intensity on vegetation and coincidence with Myrtillosa forest type in Mežaparks, Riga. In total nine study sites were established: three sites adjacent to roads where regular undergrowth management is practiced, three adjacent sites to edges of the pathways, where undergrowth management is practiced only occasionally and three adjacent sites to roads where there is no management activity at all. Combined 54 sample plots were created (each sized 10 × 10 m, area 100 m2 ), where vegetation survey was done using Braun-Blanquet method. This study showed that with an increase in the intensity of undergrowth management, in general, the species richness and their coverage increases, or more specifically, the number of herbaceous and moss species increases, but the occurrence of shrub species decreases. In all study sites we observed the development of synantrophic species, especifically, the development of fructification which was indicated by the following species: Sambucus nigra L., Sambucus racemosa L., Amelanchier spicata Lam. If management intensity decreases, the proportion of competitor species decreases, but the proportion of CSR strategy type species stabilizes.

Zemgale geobotanical region historically was dominated by large broad-leaved forests, but last centuries the high anthropogenic pressure on these territories has reduced the area of these forests. In fragmented landscape small patches of natural broad-leaf forests are protected to preserve the forest structural features, which also function as habitats for rare and protected species. The aim of this study was to compare the natural broad-leaf forest habitats and structural elements and vegetation in woodland key habitats in production forests and protected areas (nature park ''Tērvete'' and nature reserve ''Ukru gārša'') in Zemgale. In total, 12 sample plots were established (the size of sample plot 0.1 ha) in Aegopodiosa forest type. In all sample plots forest structural features were measured and vegetation survey using Braun-Blanquet method was made. In this study, we found that average amount of dead wood varies between 78.7 m**3 haE-1 in woodland key habitats in production forests and 133.0 m**3 haE-1 special protected areas. Considerable amount of broad-leaf natural forests represented by nemoral species (50 – 58% of species richness), which corresponds to these forest type communities in the region.

Green infrastructure (GI) is a strategically planned network of high quality natural and semi-natural areas and provides a range of ecosystem services and protects biodiversity in urban settings. It is very important to increase understanding of the role of GI from a scientific and a socio-economic perspective. The main goal was to understand and assess the ways that tourists use from experiencing urban green infrastructure in the cities they visit. An interview questionnaire survey took place among tourists of the following countries and cities: Latvia (Riga and Jelgava) and Portugal (Lisbon and Faro). The questionnaire includes perception, psychological aspects and preferences, behaviour and activities and general questions as well as biographical information about tourists. The study represents that no significant differences have been found between respondent groups in Latvia and Portugal. The results of the survey show that in future there is a need to improve the linkage between GI and social-cultural activities in cities. Therefore, studies for tourists’ perceptions, preferences and uses of GI will provide the alternative management approaches for urban planning and tourism development in future.

The territorial planning and the management of urban surfaces force the decrease of green spaces in urban landscapes. As the urbanization process during past decades of the last century was quite intensive not only in Europe but also in Lithuania, findings describing changes of forest cover as well as spatial structure of the forest land are requested. The aim of this study was as follows: first, to calculate and compare areas of the forest land in six major cities of Lithuania in 1950 and 2011, second, to evaluate the spatial structure of the forest land by investigated cities within the period of 1950 – 2011. Methods of descriptive statistical analysis and spatial analysis using ArcGIS and MS EXCEL software were used. The study was based on two geodatabases, representing the forest cover in 1950 and 2011. Results of this study revealed that areas of the forest land increased in all investigated cities excluding Panevėžys city. The increases of areas of the forest land were discovered to vary from 0.8% to 9.5%. The largest increase was found in Vilnius city (9.5%), the smallest – in Šiauliai city (0.8%). The decrease by 0.9% of the forest land was found just in Panevėžys city. No significant changes of the forest land spatial structure were found in largest cities of Lithuania, i.e. Vilnius city and Kaunas city. The spatial structure of forest land in other investigated cities tended to degrade.

Stakeholders and involved parties are crucial in a proper management of forest areas, more so in nature park areas. Urban nature areas and more remote peri-urban areas have objectively the most complex management issues due to the potentially high density of visitors and a diverse range of stakeholders. Such areas can also be valuable nature conservation and biodiversity hotspots, further making stakeholder interactions more complex. In this research, we conduct stakeholder identification for two case study areas – an urban forest nature park and a peri-urban forest nature park, with the aim of developing detailed lists of involved parties, including both public and private entities. We identified three main blocks of stakeholders (regulatory, usage, management), and detailed each group and sub-group for the case study areas. Our main results and conclusions include the identification of minor differences particularly explained by geographical and socio-economic contexts for each of the areas, with the regulatory stakeholder group overlapping the most between the two areas. The potential use of such analysis can improve or develop cooperation between previously unobserved stakeholders, and in research contexts, allow for a greater input from various parties that could have been missed in a more detailed analysis of a research area.